Exclusive: André Corrêa do Lago says rise of clean energy must be acknowledged and rich countries need to do more
Cop30 live – latest updates
Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of climate talks in Brazil
Oil-producing countries need to acknowledge the rise of clean energy, and rich countries will have to provide more assurances on finance if the chasm between negotiating nations at Cop30 is to be bridged, the president of the summit has said.
André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian climate diplomat in charge of the talks, said: “Developing countries are looking at developed countries as countries that could be much more generous in supporting them to be more sustainable. They could offer more finance, and technology.”
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/19/2025 - 11:43
11/19/2025 - 11:00
We want to hear about how these shifts showed up in your everyday lives this year
The climate crisis is reshaping our lives: extreme weather events are intensifying, extinctions are accelerating and the urgency for both adaptation and intervention only increase.
But there are also the smaller, more personal impacts. Perhaps it’s not being able to fish with your kids in the place where your childhood memories were made because the river has dried up. Maybe it’s not being able to gather around a campfire in the summer, due to wildfire risks and restrictions. It can be the loss of a favorite tree, a personal sacrifice you’ve made for the greater good, or a change you’ve observed through the seasons.
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11/19/2025 - 10:44
Governments across the continent have attacked green rules with increasing ferocity – all while professing their commitment to existing climate targets
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To little fanfare and few international headlines, Denmark just announced one of the world’s most ambitious climate targets.
The unusually wind-powered and cycle-friendly Nordic nation – whose ruling Social Democrats suffered a setback in elections on Tuesday – promised on Monday to cut planet-heating pollution by at least 82% by 2035 from 1990 levels. The goal inches past the UK’s landmark 81% target for that year and races ahead of the EU’s rather wide goal of 66.3% to 72.5%.
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11/19/2025 - 09:00
Report commissioned by conservationists suggests some recorded new growth is misclassified or otherwise not equivalent to losses in species-heavy forests
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At face value, the amount of forest in Australia is officially increasing, and has been since 2008.
But if an old-growth tree is felled in a forest and seedlings grow elsewhere, is the official account ecologically sound? Not according to new analysis, which suggests that the way Australia calculates forest cover obfuscates the impacts of ongoing deforestation.
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11/19/2025 - 09:00
Environment minister Murray Watt says other parties must decide ‘whether they want to see us do a deal with the other side of politics’
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Senior Liberal MPs are optimistic a deal can be reached with Labor on a watered-down version of its new nature laws, allowing them to be passed in parliament’s final sitting week of the year.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, is open to a deal with the Coalition that would require a raft of concessions, including revising a new provision designed to block projects that cause an “unacceptable impact” on the environment.
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11/19/2025 - 07:37
In an unorthodox move, the Brazilian organisers have hatched a plan to wrap up the trickiest topics at the climate summit by this evening, two days earlier than normal
Mother Earth is watching over Cop30. “I am taking care to watch over all the decisions taken here about me,” she told the Guardian. The blessing card she presented said: “Knowing the powerful impact my thoughts can have on others and the environment, I choose to create a positive mindset.”
This beautiful vision is in everyday life Nazaré Oliveira, an indigenous woman from Belém, and a descendant of the Potyguar people. She is part of the international spiritual organisation Brahma Kumaris, led by women and which uses meditation to emphasise the concept of identity as souls rather than bodies and the idea that humanity and nature are one.
This is my fifth COP. I’ve been around since COP26 in Glasgow and this has been the most militarised COP I’ve attended. We had really high expectations because I’m from Latin America, and this is also the Latin American COP – apart from the Amazonian and the Brazilian Cop.
So we had really high expectations of also being able to demonstrate, protest and exercise our right to the civic space. But we have encountered heavy militarisation and a heavy crackdown on civil society protesting outside the venue.
I think it’s very disconcerting. Like it was definitely a very racist letter where the UN seems to want to inflict power over the autonomous territory of Brazilian authorities.
I think this is a confrontation that is needed. What’s happening in between civil society, the military and the UN, it’s a reflection of the tension that exists within this space. So I hope for this COP that the United Nations authorities and the Brazilian authorities open their eyes and they realise that what they are doing, what they are inflicting with the militarisation of COP is completely opposite of what they have been preaching in the last three years.
Brazil knew that they wanted to host this COP since three years ago, probably even earlier. So the way that they are responding to it does not show that they were ready to receive all this flow of international civil society. So my hope is that they can release, relax the heavy militarization that they’re putting in the space and allow us to use the civic space to demonstrate.
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11/19/2025 - 06:00
Exclusive: A top official in Beijing’s Cop delegation says China is committed to clean energy – but US’s absence is a problem
China is committed to the energy transition needed to avert climate breakdown – but does not want to take the lead alone in the absence of the US, one of the country’s senior advisers has told the Guardian.
Wang Yi said China would provide more money to vulnerable countries, but the EU’s climate commissioner has warned Beijing is not doing enough to cut emissions.
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11/19/2025 - 05:14
Drone footage shows hundreds of tonnes of rubbish piled up in a field in a small village in Oxfordshire. The illegal waste was left by fly-tippers between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington. It is said to be 150 metres long and at least 6 metres high, according to local media
Fly-tippers dump ‘mountain’ of waste in Oxfordshire field
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11/19/2025 - 05:00
Fallout from increased emissions linked to president’s ‘America First’ policies expected to most affect those in poor, hot countries
This article is co-published with ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.
New advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human cost of the Trump administration’s approach to climate.
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11/19/2025 - 03:56
Massive Sargassum blooms sweeping across the Caribbean and Atlantic are fueled by a powerful nutrient partnership: phosphorus pulled to the surface by equatorial upwelling and nitrogen supplied by cyanobacteria living directly on the drifting algae. Coral cores reveal that this nutrient engine has intensified over the past decade, perfectly matching surges in Sargassum growth since 2011. By ruling out older theories involving Saharan dust and river runoff, researchers uncovered a climate-driven process that shapes when and where these colossal seaweed mats form.
